[Footnote 134:  Marin had sent sixty men in August to seize the house, which belonged to the trader Fraser. Depeches de Duquesne.  They carried off two men whom they found here.  Letter of Fraser in Colonial Records of Pa., V. 659.]

[Footnote 135:  Journal of Washington, as printed at Williamsburg, just after his return.]

With all their civility, the French officers did their best to entice away Washington’s Indians; and it was with extreme difficulty that he could persuade them to go with him.  Through marshes and swamps, forests choked with snow, and drenched with incessant rain, they toiled on for four days more, till the wooden walls of Fort Le Boeuf appeared at last, surrounded by fields studded thick with stumps, and half-encircled by the chill current of French Creek, along the banks of which lay more than two hundred canoes, ready to carry troops in the spring.  Washington describes Legardeur de Saint-Pierre as “an elderly gentleman with much the air of a soldier.”  The letter sent him by Dinwiddie expressed astonishment that his troops should build forts upon lands “so notoriously known to be the property of the Crown of Great Britain.”  “I must desire you,” continued the letter, “to acquaint me by whose authority and instructions you have lately marched from Canada with an armed force, and invaded the King of Great Britain’s territories.  It becomes my duty to require your peaceable departure; and that you would forbear prosecuting a purpose so interruptive of the harmony and good understanding which His Majesty is desirous to continue and cultivate with the Most Christian King.  I persuade myself you will receive and entertain Major Washington with the candor and politeness natural to your nation; and it will give me the greatest satisfaction if you return him with an answer suitable to my wishes for a very long and lasting peace between us.”

Saint-Pierre took three days to frame the answer.  In it he said that he should send Dinwiddie’s letter to the Marquis Duquesne and wait his orders; and that meanwhile he should remain at his post, according to the commands of his general.  “I made it my particular care,” so the letter closed, “to receive Mr. Washington with a distinction suitable to your dignity as well as his own quality and great merit."[136] No form of courtesy had, in fact, been wanting.  “He appeared to be extremely complaisant,” says Washington, “though he was exerting every artifice to set our Indians at variance with us.  I saw that every stratagem was practised to win the Half-King to their interest.”  Neither gifts nor brandy were spared; and it was only by the utmost pains that Washington could prevent his red allies from staying at the fort, conquered by French blandishments.

[Footnote 136:  “La Distinction qui convient a votre Dignitte a sa Qualite et a son grand Merite.”  Copy of original letter sent by Dinwiddie to Governor Hamilton.]